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Subnautica
| released = Microsoft Windows, MacOS Xbox One | genre = Adventure, survival | modes = Single-player | director = | designer = | programmer = | artist = | writer = | composer = Simon Chylinski }} Subnautica is an open world survival game in development. Subnautica allows the player to explore an aquatic alien planet by scuba diving and traveling in submersibles. It was released on Steam Early Access on December 16, 2014, and on the Xbox One on May 17, 2016, with a PlayStation 4 version planned and in testing. The full release on Steam is planned for January 16, 2018. Gameplay The player controls in first-person view the lone survivor of a crashed space ship, called the Aurora, on an aquatic planet. The main objective of the player is to explore the open world environment and survive the dangers of the planet while at the same time following the story of what happened in the game. Subnautica allows the player to collect resources, construct tools, bases, and submersibles, and interact with the planet's wildlife. In the basic difficulty Survival, players have to maintain hunger, hydration and oxygen. The game includes a day and night cycle. The game includes three other modes: Freedom mode, in which hunger and thirst are disabled; Hardcore mode, which is the same as Survival, except that if the player dies, the player will no longer be able to respawn; and Creative Mode, in which the hunger, thirst, health, and oxygen features are all disabled, all the crafting blueprints are acquired, where no resources are needed to craft and the submersibles do not need energy and can be damaged. The game is mainly set underwater, with two explorable islands. HTC Vive Support is not yet fully built into the game. As a result, using SteamVR will not work with the Vive Controllers. Plot The game takes place in the late 22nd century, when humanity begins to colonize planets in space. In the old plot a terraforming vessel known as the Aurora has been sent to the outer reaches of controlled space to construct a Phasegate (and find a lost ship known as the Degasi.) However, the Aurora is struck by an energy pulse of unknown origin, and crash lands onto an ocean planet known as Planet 4546B. The player escapes in an escape pod. Whilst the player crashing is still part of the plot the point of the Aurora has been changed and the Aurora is now instead a trade ship that was trying to take a shortcut by performing a "Gravitational Slingshot" around the planet when it got shot down. While progressing through the game, radio messages are sent to the player's communications relay, sending them to other crashed escape pods containing information about some of the Aurora's passengers and what happened to them. However, a few signals are received by unknown hostile creatures who seem to be communicating and planning on hunting survivors of the crash. Later in the game, some radio signals are received from a passing cargo ship, called the Sunbeam, which picked up the Aurora's distress signal and are coming to help, telling the player that they are going to land on a nearby island to rescue them. Upon attempted landing, the Sunbeam is destroyed by a mysterious laser. Later in the game, the player discovers remnants of an ancient alien race known as Precursors, who placed the planet in quarantine after an outbreak of a disease known as Carar, which has infected nearly the entire planet. Quarantine measures the player encounters include the laser gun that shot down the Aurora, Degasi, and Sunbeam; as well as cyborg creatures known as Warpers (the same creatures who sent the mysterious messages earlier in the game). It is then revealed that the player is infected with Carar, forcing them to find a cure. The player must then find the Precursor's "Primary Containment Facility" which holds the Sea Emperor Leviathan, the biggest creature in the game. It is a thousand-year-old creature that contains an enzyme to cure Carar. The Emperor resides in an artificial aquarium, housing a stable ecosystem. Once getting the cure from the Sea Emperor and hatching its babies, the player must go back to the gun and disable it. Once the gun is disabled, the player can build a rocket to escape the planet. Development Subnautica was announced by Unknown Worlds Entertainment on December 17, 2013, with Charlie Cleveland as the game director and lead gameplay programmer, and Hugh Jeremy as the producer. The development team opted to use the Unity engine rather than Spark, the engine used for the company's previous game, Natural Selection 2. Subnautica producer Hugh Jeremy justified this decision because of the different demands that the game places on the engine, and "because team does not include people working on Spark, it's not appropriate for Subnautica to use Spark. By using Unity for Subnautica, Spark can continue to develop in certain directions, while Subnautica develops in others. To use Spark for Subnautica would be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole." The development team opted against the inclusion of lethal weapons in the game. Charlie Cleveland, the game's director, described Subnautica as "one vote towards a world with less guns," and had felt inspired by real life gun violence, including the Sandy Hook shooting, to encourage players to think about "non-violent and more creative solutions to solve our problems." Subnautica was released on Steam Early Access on December 16, 2014, and is currently in early access development. It was released on Xbox One Preview on May 17, 2016. Reception Ian Birnbaum of PC Gamer described Subnautica as an "underwater Minecraft", remarking that "with an experienced developer at the helm and a limitless variety of the oceans to play with, it's going to take a lot for Subnautica to go badly wrong. As the toolbox gets deeper and the shape of the end-game gets set, Subnautica will be a unique example of the ways survival can be tense, rewarding, and fun." Marsh Davies of Rock, Paper, Shotgun praised the rewarding nature of exploring the world of Subnautica, but criticized the "arbitrariness" and lack of intuition in some of the in-game recipes. References External links * Category:MacOS games Category:Upcoming video games scheduled for 2017 Category:Adventure games Category:Windows games Category:Early access video games Category:Survival video games Category:Scuba diving video games Category:Open world video games Category:Video games developed in the United States Category:Unity (game engine) games Category:Xbox One games Category:Video games Category:Thinknoodles